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'D' Day Commemorations
By Jim Kelsey

Commemoration and remembrance are the dominant themes of thousands of ceremonies, re-unions, exhibitions, religious services and entertainments organised on both sides of the English Channel throughout 1994, marking the 50th anniversary of the most crucial military event of the Second World War.

'D' day on 6 June 1944

Fifty years ago the southern counties of England - Hampshire, the Isle of Wight (IOW) and Dorset - became a vast armed camp of over 3 million. British (First and Third Divisions), American (First, Fourth and 29th Divisions) and Canadian (Third Division) constituted the Allied invasion force which also included contingents from Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, free French, Holland, Rhodesia, South Africa and New Zealand.
General Eisenhower and Lord Montgomery planned Operation Overlord, the audacious seaborne campaign which landed 130,000 Allied troops from 7,000 vessels on five Normandy beachheads. The invasion's success was due to meticulous planning and secrecy. 'D' Day precipitated Germany's surrender on 3 May 1945; the apocalyptic horror of atomic devastation accelerated Japan's capitulation on 14 August 1945.
Curtain raiser to the commemorative 'D' Day events begins with a Normandy Veterans Parade and remembrance service followed by a Maritime review of the Navy by the Duke of Edinburgh at Netley, near Southampton, on 27 May 1994.
Organised by former MP Sir Tom Normanton who served on Eisenhower's staff during the Normandy landings, the veterans have been recruited through American, British, Canadian, French and Commonwealth ex-servicemen's organisations.
Sir Tom was somewhat miffed when he heard a Minister tell a questioner in the House of Commons that nothing had been planned to commemorate 'D' Day.
" I got on the phone straight away to John and told him that this was ridiculous. He said: 'Come and see me'. I went to Downing Street and discussed my ideas, 'Put them on a sheet of A4 and let me have them'.
The doughty Sir Tom, who is a personal friend of the Prime Minister's, did precisely what he was asked.
"At the Notley ceremony there will be 10,000 Normandy ex-servicemen and 2,000 civilians - stevedores, postmen, nurses, coastguards - representatives of every organisation whose contribution to the fighting forces were so vital at that time. "No one must be forgotten", said Sir Tom.
Normandy veteran Prince Philip, watched by heads of state from Allied countries, will officiate and there will be a fly-past of World War Two aircraft.
After the ceremony Prince Philip sails in the Royal Yacht Britannia on a Maritime Review of Solent shipping. Fifty years ago this channel of water separating Hampshire from the IOW was crammed with an amphibious Armada. It included battleships, destroyers, frigates, bits of two floating Mulberry harbours, tugs converted into ammunition carriers and kitchens.
Special vessels carried the Pluto oil pipeline which, laid beneath the sea, would provide fuel for the invasion forces. There were also hundreds of landing craft to transport tanks, military vehicles and the invasion force of British, American and Canadian servicemen to a Channel rendezvous south of the IOW, nicknamed Piccadilly Circus, and then to France.
Also on 27 May, the Southern and Normandy Tourist Boards have arranged for 10,000 French schoolchildren and 10,000 of their British peers to visit all the Allied war cemeteries in Northern France. After laying wreaths, white doves will be released carrying messages of peace, friendship and goodwill.
On 4 June, President Clinton and heads of state will join the Queen and, hopefully the Queen Mother, at a garden party at Southwick House, the elegant Georgian manor overlooking Portsmouth where Eisenhower and Montgomery planned 'D' Day.
The operations room, with the giant map detailing the Normandy landings, is frozen in time, left as it was on 8 June 1944. The three men who installed the map were imprisoned in the House until after the invasion to ensure secrecy.
Nearby, the medieval village of Southwick remains virtually unchanged although the decor of the Golden Lion pub has inevitably been altered. It was here Eisenhower drank beer and Montgomery lemonade during their breaks from 'D' Day planning.
Eisenhower was compelled to delay Operation Overlord one day owing to appalling weather conditions. Worried and apprehensive, he wrote a letter accepting full responsibility for launching the mission on 8 June just in case it failed. Storm clouds threatened, but once he received an encouraging message from his meteorologist he made his decision: "OK - Let's Go!" he said.
In the evening of 4 June, the Queen, President Clinton and visiting heads of state will attend a commemorative state banquet in Portsmouth's Guildhall. Among the 500 guests will be military and civil representatives of the Allied nations who took part in 'D' Day operations.
On 8 June, the Queen and the American President will unveil a statue of Churchill and Roosevelt destined for the newly-renovated Southsea, 'D' Day Museum. Later, with leaders from Allied countries and thousands of Normandy veterans her Majesty will attend an open air UK/US/Canadian Drumhead Service on the city common attended by 30,000 veterans.

The commemorative events are not a celebration but a remembrance - a mixture of nostalgia and regret.

Nostalgia for the unity of purpose in those war time years: regret for all those who made the ultimate sacrifice

Sir Thomas Normanton

Later that day the Queen aboard Britannia and President Clinton on the George Washington, will head a flotilla of vessels down the Solent, past the Isle of Wight to Caen, the Normandy city reduced to dust in the invasion. The fleet, accompanied by Lancasters, Spitfires and Hurricanes, will include the Canberra, QE2, Crown Odyssey, Statendam and Jeremiah O'Brien as well as ships from Britain's wartime allies. Some 1,000 paratroopers, including a contingent from Canada, will stage a drop over Caen's Pegasus Bridge. The re-built French town is where France's President Mitterand will entertain his distinguished guests.
On 8 June national services of commemoration will be held at UK and Normandy war cemeteries and churches. In the afternoon President Mitterand will host an international service of remembrance on Normandy's Omaha Beach, where the Americans suffered devastating losses 50 years ago. Later there will be a march past at Arromanches, scene of the British landings.
The Southern counties are expecting 250,000 visitors this year including thousands of Americans and Canadian war veterans. The ex-servicemen, many of whom spent up to a year at camps in the region, will be well catered for with hundreds of commemorative and nostalgic events recalling their participation in the assembly of the biggest assault force in the history of warfare.

They include DC-3 Dakota flights over the Normandy beaches from Bournemouth; the largest display ever of World War Two aircraft at Boscombe Down Airfield near Salisbury and forties style singing and drinking "bunker" evenings.
Among the Bovington Tank Museum's 300 vehicles from 30 countries is the American amphibian Sherman DD which, on reaching the Normandy coast on '0' Day, transformed itself from boat to tank to surprise the German defenders. On 5 June, the Museum is staging an ENSA concert with singers Max Bygrave, the Beverley Sisters and the Glen Miller Band.

At Gosport's Submarine Museum there is the midget "X" Craft, one of two four-man submersibles that layoff the Normandy coast, rising to the surface to shine navigational lights for the invasion fleet to reach the Normandy beaches.
London's War Museum is staging a mammoth 'D' Day exhibition and a 50p coin and 81 stamps for the UK and eleven overseas countries will also be issued to commemorate the event.
World War Two cost an estimated 1.5 billion dollars. The cost to the UK was £334,423 million - five times greater than World War One.
However, far more catastrophic was the devastation in human life - 55 million dead including 11,000 Allied troops who died in the Normandy landings.